“Don’t be a wizard, what do you mean? Speak out.”
“I am not trying to be a wizard, but we shan’t be drowned. We are in a bell of air, and it is this compressed air which stops the water from rising. This airshaft, without an outlet, is doing for us what the diving bell does for the diver. The air has accumulated in the shaft and now resists the water, which ebbs back.”
“It is the foul air that we have to fear… The water is not rising a foot now; the mine must be full…”
“Where’s Marius?” cried Pages, thinking of his only son, who worked on the third level.
“Oh, Marius! Marius,” he shrieked.
There was no reply, not even an echo. His voice did not go beyond our “bell.”
Was Marius saved? One hundred and fifty men drowned! That would be too horrible. One hundred and fifty men, at least, had gone down into the mine, how many had been able to get out by the shafts, or had found a refuge like ourselves?
There was now utter silence in the mine. At our feet the water was quite still, not a ripple, not a gurgle. The mine was full. This heavy silence, impenetrable and deathly, was more stupefying than the frightful uproar that we had heard when the water first rushed in. We were in a tomb, buried alive, more than a hundred feet under ground. We all seemed to feel the awfulness of our situation. Even the professor seemed crushed down. Suddenly, I felt some warm drops fall on my hand. It was Carrory… He was crying, silently. Then came a voice, shrieking:
“Marius! my boy, Marius!”
The air was heavy to breathe; I felt suffocated; there was a buzzing in my ears. I was afraid, afraid of the water, the darkness, and death. The silence oppressed me, the uneven, jagged walls of our place of refuge seemed as though they would fall and crush me beneath their weight. Should I never see Lise again, and Arthur, and Mrs. Milligan, and dear old Mattia. Would they be able to make little Lise understand that I was dead, and that I could not bring her news from her brothers and sister! And Mother Barberin, poor Mother Barberin!…